4 A B C OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE 



with loss. Nothing can supply the need of actual experience. 

 In reading an article on fruit culture, the veteran will gather 

 more valuable information than the novice, for he will know 

 what thoughts and methods are the most practical, while the 

 novice will be more apt to follow impracticable theories, and be 

 led astray, or may not clearly understand the lesson taught." 

 With the first of this I most heartily agree. The novice had 

 better begin in a small way, and work up as he gets experience. 

 As to the latter part, I believe that friend Green could write an 

 article or a book, and tell a novice exactly what to do, leaving 

 out all "impracticable theories" that might lead him astraj, 

 and write it so plainly that even a child could understand the 

 lesson taught. Now, this is exactly what the writer will try to 

 do in this little work. When I read "Gregory on Squashes," 

 years ago, all of his directions were so plain that I, although 

 entirely new at the business, made a success from the very 

 beginning in growing from a quarter to half an acre. Why can 

 not the growing of strawberries be made as plain and simple? 



Having been through the mill lately myself, perhaps I shall 

 think to make every little matter more plain than some older 

 and more expert hand would. Such are apt to forget how 

 green they were once. For example : When visiting my friend 

 W. W. Farnsworth, a well-known berry-grower, he was laugh- 

 ing over the ignorance displayed by the writer of a letter he 

 had just received. The man wished to know whether, in cut- 

 ting all blossoms from newly set strawberry-plants, he should 

 just cut the blossoms or buds off the stalk, or cut off the whole 

 stalk, or stem, that had the buds on, along with some little 

 leaves that were on it. Now, I was not going to let brother 

 Farnsworth laugh at me, so I kept still ; but I enjoyed the 

 matter greatly all to myself, for only the year before we had 

 just that trouble on our minds. The girls came to me and said 

 there were some little leaves on the stalk with the blossoms and 

 buds ; and the books all said, " Cut off all blossoms as they 

 appear." Being entirely green at the business, we did not 



